


Migraine

by Control_Room, Random_ag



Series: Tortured Tales [26]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Depression, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Headaches, Hope, Hopeful Ending, Migraine, Pain, Suicidal feelings, Understanding, good ending, good parenting, super sweet, trying to be a good parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27679721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: Am I the only one I know, waging a war behind their face and above their throat?
Relationships: Bendy & Joey Drew
Series: Tortured Tales [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023520





	Migraine

Thunder in his head. Lightning in his eyes, flashing and pulsing, black seeping and rising and falling, like tidal waves crashing onto his thoughts, shoulders hunching like a beast unable to escape an unseen assailant. It felt as though someone had shot an electrified crossbow bolt straight into the base of his skull, tearing past skin and bone and shocking his very brain. It caused painful shivers across his limbs and tightened around his ribs, constricting his breathing and making his heartbeat viscerally loud in his mind, feeling each and every pulsation roar in his ears and neck like unresting waves shaken by an oceanic earthquake. A bubble seemed to form around the sides of his head, frothing outwards from his very cochlea and stiff jaw. His forehead felt like someone had placed a boa constrictor around the perimeter of his skull and allowed it to squeeze until he would scream.

Joey had a migraine. 

The bright glow shining directly into his sore eyes from the light table beneath his work did not help. In fact, one might say it was making it all the worse!

His head hurt, his legs ached, and his arms were stiff and unwilling to follow his requests. 

An indiscernible mumble growled around him and slipped into his ears before expanding across his entire brain, emanating outwards through his spinal column, a full body tension unleashing like a rubberband suddenly yanked by two fingers and thus pushed to its absolute limit.

Thank goodness it was Friday, because Joey was going to snap soon if that grew much further. 

His hand had let go of his pen, and he was hardly aware of its nails driving in repeatedly between his radius and ulna. Another rumble like a plane taking off right beside him, rattling him to his very atomic being, each quark screaming in protest, making everything even _worse_ , despite how insane that seemed to be. He could hardly breathe. However, with Friday came the dread of Sunday-- the day he would be completely alone. Henry would be away at the clinic. The children would go out to extracurricular activities. No one would be in the building except for himself, his bees buzzing outside his window, and his demons. 

He was not ready for that. He had never been ready for that, and would usually hide away on his computer to ignore that short walk up to the roof, not eat for fear of entering the kitchen and finding an object which would be used not by himself, not drink to avoid the easy escape of pills and the winding thoughts that brought him far, far, far away from sanity and drowned him within the liquid. And then, when his family would come home, he would lie about it by not saying anything at all.

Sometimes, when it would be dark outside and the air soothing him with storms and snow, he would think about telling Henry, writing it down and silently handing it to him so that he could read the truth himself, devoid of any more omissions, but he always stuffed those letters away into the vault, sealing them forever.

“Are you even listening to me?!”

Joey once again wished he was not ever there to hear those words, wishing himself to be blotted out of existence another time, if only for a single neverending moment. He found himself gaping wordlessly at the air, a fish desperate for water, suspended before Abby without any excuse for himself, unsure what the matter was that she would be so testy.

“Can I h-help you?” he asked, demure.

“I asked _you_ that,” Abby stated, hands on her hips. “I asked if you were okay, and you didn’t answer. Multiple times. Could you tell me what’s the matter, Mr. Drew? Or is there none? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I just have been preoccupied with my depress…” Joey trailed on, trying to hide the panic in his eyes. His head hurt too much to filter, and his tongue had already slipped. “...ing thoughts.”

“We have a deadline for this episode, Mr. Drew,” she said, shrugging off his comment, “and we haven’t even gotten a storyline for it yet! Do you have writer’s block or something of the sort?”

His head shook almost bonelessly, carefully so as to not rattle his thoughts. Time seemed to be going so slowly, how long had he been sitting there working on that single frame? When was the last time that he had slept? Was he thinking or was he just moving along a sleepwalking path like a beast made of sludge and string? He blinked a few times and saw the drawings double as the rumble in his ears increased deafeningly.

“You don’t look so good.”

“I’m not as fine as I s-seem,” Joey said with a bright smile. He rose suddenly, the motion revolting to his body, and he nodded to her, still smiling, and he began walking out. “Pardon.” 

He was outside, trying to use fresh air as a weapon against the pain. The roses were still just sticks, not yet able to blossom with greenery. His head was under his arms, and his ears twitched as they picked up the slightest change in notes that indicated an approach of someone, someone small. 

Bendy crawled into his lap. 

“See all those rose bushes, baby?” Joey whispered, holding him gently with his horned head pressed to his trapped chest. “That’s kinda how my head is right now.”

‘Ready to grow?’ Bendy asked, tilting his head. Joey smiled slightly, and corrected, “That’s a bit different then what I meant. I mean… don’t they l-look burnt?”

‘A little bit,’ Bendy answered, looking around. ‘But not really. No burns.’

“Mmm.” 

The parent and child were quiet. 

‘Do not forget this, Bendy,’ Joey silently remarked after a while, the sun moving by degrees across the sky so slightly it appeared to not go at all. ‘When I paint, I do not think, but I know what I do. I think behind my mind. Sometimes I draw things that are… disturbing, you know?’

‘Sometimes, but I think everyone does,’ Bendy replied. Joey wondered just where he could have gotten such a brilliant, compassionate and empathetic child from, what did he do to deserve him? ‘I think that drawings and writing are a peek into the door of a person's mind that shows things they usually would not share.’

‘Right you are.’ Joey sighed in amazement. He loved his little darling devil, even through the burning cloud of pain that stormed and shrieked like a thousand banshees in his head. ‘And some of those minds are like Pandora's box. Or worse. Even if you are curious, you should not open them. Ever.’

‘I do not think your mind is like that,’ Bendy remarked. Johan tried not to tremble. 

“There’s flecks of… not good things.” 

‘Still not bad.’ 

‘It’s a wreck, Benderoo.’

‘Not bad.’

“Oh, Bendy.”

Joey hugged him, closing his eyes. 

“It’s v-violent in there, my dear.” he murmured. “I might be afraid of the o-ocean, but that surrounds the small spaces that I can stand upon. My thoughts are… are like tidal waves, Bendy. Ebb, flow.”

‘But that is how the world goes. We need the tides.’

“But sometimes the tide might try to swallow you. It might lunge for you, l-like a famished lion I must f-fight.” Johan shivered, not with the thought of a beast devouring him, but the mere idea of the sea. “Blood upon the maw and bones within it.”

Bendy played with his father's hand, the thin palm much larger than his own soft plasmic ink one, releasing it to respond.

‘You are good, Papi.’

“I truly hope so.”

‘You are, Papi.’ the little toon insisted. ‘I know you are. You are my Papi, which must be good, and you always do the right thing.’

Johan smiled wryly: “You are too kind with me, Bendibop. I don't deserve that.”

‘Of course you do, Papi.’

Johan caressed his child's little horns through those tufts of keratin so much like his own. 

“You really think I can be deserving of that?” he asked softly. “Even as I am a weapon?”

‘You are doing what you can. Sometimes you need to fight.’ Bendy smiled, hugging him sideways. Thin dark arms wrapped around the little inky body and Johan tucked him a little closer to himself. His smile sweetened a bit. ‘You are not alone. You have us, and the studio. Your family.’

“I guess you’re right, d-darling,” he murmured, laying a kiss on his child's head. “I got used to bein’ alone a long time ago, I suppose it’s h-hard to remember that I’m not anymore.”

‘Maybe we should have a day off,’ Bendy suggested. ‘With everyone. And have a picnic. Take a picture of it to hold it forever.’ 

‘For what?’

‘To remind you that we have got hope and each other,’ Bendy answered innocuously. 

Joey smiled. 

“We’ve made it pretty far, kid.”


End file.
